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The Act of Uniformity 1662 (14 Cha. 2. c. 4) is an Act of the Parliament of England. (It was formerly cited as 13 & 14 Cha. 2. c. 4, by reference to the regnal year when it was passed on 19 May 1662.) It prescribed the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Adherence to this was required in order to hold any office in government or the church, although the new version of the Book of Common Prayer prescribed by the Act was so new that most people had never even seen a copy. The Act also required that the Book of Common Prayer "be truly and exactly Translated into the British or Welsh Tongue". It also explicitly required episcopal ordination for all ministers, i.e. deacons, priests and bishops, which had to be reintroduced since the Puritans had abolished many features of the Church during the Civil War. The act did not explicitly encompass the Isle of Man.[3]
A few sections of this Act were still in force in the United Kingdom at the end of 2010.[4]
Great Ejection
As an immediate result of this Act, over 2,000 clergymen refused to take the oath and were expelled from the Church of England in what became known as the Great Ejection of 1662. Although there had already been ministers outside the established church, this created the concept of non-conformity, with a substantial section of English society excluded from public affairs for a century and a half.
Clarendon Code
The Act of Uniformity itself is one of four crucial pieces of legislation, known as the Clarendon Code, named after Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Charles II's Lord Chancellor.[5] They are:
- The Corporation Act 1661 – This first of the four statutes which made up the Clarendon Code required all municipal officials to take Anglican communion, and formally reject the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. The effect of this act was to exclude nonconformists from public office. This legislation was rescinded in 1828.
- The Act of Uniformity 1662 – This second statute made use of the Book of Common Prayer compulsory in religious service. Upwards of 2000 clergy refused to comply with this act, and were forced to resign their livings.
- The Conventicle Act 1664 – This act forbade conventicles (a meeting for unauthorized worship) of more than 5 people who were not members of the same household. The purpose was to prevent dissenting religious groups from meeting.
- The Five Mile Act 1665 – This final act of the Clarendon Code was aimed at Nonconformist ministers, who were forbidden from coming within five miles of incorporated towns or the place of their former livings. They were also forbidden to teach in schools. This act was not rescinded until 1812.
Combined with the Test Act, the Corporation Acts excluded all nonconformists from holding civil or military office, and prevented them from being awarded degrees by the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.
Quakers Act 1662
| Act of Parliament | |
 | |
| Long title | An Act for preventing the Mischiefs and Dangers that may arise, by certain Persons called Quakers, and others, refusing to take lawful Oaths. |
|---|---|
| Citation | 14 Cha. 2. c. 1 (Ruffhead: 13 & 14 Cha. 2. c. 1 |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 2 May 1662 |
| Other legislation | |
| Repealed by | Places of Religious Worship Act 1812 |
Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Another Act, the Quaker Act 1662, required subjects to swear an oath of allegiance to the king, which Quakers did not do out of religious conviction. It set out specific penalties for first (a fine of up to £5, or three months' imprisonment with hard labour), second (a fine of up to £10, or six months imprisonment with hard labour), and third (transportation) offence. It also allowed that should the defendant subsequently agree to swear oaths and not attend unlawful assemblies (as defined by the Act) then all penalties would be cancelled.[6]
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer introduced by Charles II was substantially the same as Elizabeth's version of 1559, itself based on Thomas Cranmer's earlier version of 1552. Apart from minor changes this remains the official and permanent legal version of prayer authorised by Parliament and Church.
Act of Toleration
The Toleration Act 1688 allowed certain dissenters places and freedom to worship, provided they accept to subscribe to an oath.
Modified in 1872
The provisions of the Act of Uniformity 1662 were modified and partly revoked by the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act 1872. This has been repealed by the General Synod.
See also
- Act of Uniformity
- Conformist
- Nonconformist
- Puritan's Pit
- Religion in the United Kingdom
- Savoy Conference
- Thomas Becket
References
- ^ The citation of this Act by this short title was authorised by section 5 of, and Schedule 2 to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1948. Due to the repeal of those provisions, it is now authorised by section 19(2) of the Interpretation Act 1978.
- ^ These words are printed against this Act in the second column of Schedule 2 to the Statute Law Revision Act 1948, which is headed "Title".
- ^
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gordon, Alexander (1900). "Wilson, Thomas (1663–1755)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 139–142).
- ^ The Chronological Table of the Statutes, 1235–2010. The Stationery Office. 2011. ISBN 978-0-11-840509-6. Part I. p. 63, read with pp. viii and x.
- ^ Dudley, Albert Cassell (1912). "Nonconformity Under the "Clarendon Code"". The American Historical Review. 18 (1): 65–78. doi:10.2307/1832693. ISSN 0002-8762.
- ^ "Charles II, 1662: An Act for preventing the Mischeifs and Dangers that may arise by certaine Persons called Quakers and others refusing to take lawfull Oaths. | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. British History Online. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
Further reading
- Edmund Calamy (1775). Samuel Palmer (ed.). The Nonconformist's Memorial: Being an Account of the Lives, Sufferings, and Printed Works, of the Two Thousand Ministers Ejected from the Church of England, Chiefly by the Act of Uniformity, Aug. 24, 1666. Vol. 1. London: W. Harris.
- Edmund Calamy (1778). Samuel Palmer (ed.). The Nonconformist's Memorial: Being an Account of the Lives, Sufferings, and Printed Works, of the Two Thousand Ministers Ejected from the Church of England, Chiefly by the Act of Uniformity, Aug. 24, 1666. Vol. 2 (2nd ed.). London: Alexander Hogg.
External links
- Digital reproduction of the Original Act on the Parliamentary Archives catalogue
- Text of the Act
- Text of the Act, in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5 at British History Online
- Text of the Act of Uniformity 1662 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.
6 Annotations
Second Reading
Bill • Link
The book of common prayer, as revised by the convocation [the Savoy conference], was submitted to and approved by the parliament; and measures were immediately taken to secure its adoption throughout the country. On the 19th May, 1662, an act, called the Act of Uniformity, received the royal assent. It was enacted that it should come into operation on the 24th of the ensuing August. By this act every minister was compelled to subscribe to every thing contained in the book of common prayer. It was also enacted, that no minister should officiate in the church of England without episcopal ordination.
---The Reformation of the Church of England. J.H. Blunt, 1882
Bill • Link
Sorry, the about section was from:
---A History of the English Episcopacy. T. Lathbury, 1886.
Bill • Link
The effect of these provisions of the Act of Uniformity was that a large number of the non-episcopal accepted the conditions imposed — that they should be episcopally ordained, accept the Prayer Book system as now set forth, and renounce the obligations into which they had entered for the destruction of Episcopacy, and for opposing the Crown by force of arms. These incumbents thus legalized their position, and qualified themselves to carry out the system of the Church of England according to its long-established principles. Those ministers who declined to accept these conditions and to "conform" to the Church system, and who were hence called "Nonconformists," amounted in number to about eight hundred; and on August 24, 1662, they were obliged by the provisions of the Act to vacate their benefices. Some of these established themselves as ministers of separate congregations of Presbyterians or Independents, or of some of the many other sects which were gradually formed among the remnant of the Puritans.
---The Reformation of the Church of England. J.H. Blunt, 1882
Bill • Link
The Act is also mentioned on Saturday 31 May 1662: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Bill • Link
...and is alluded to on 19 May 1662: http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Charles II and Parliament are trying to unify the people -- and some of the ejected preachers were clearly extremely free thinkers, to put it mildly. One example:
Francis Bamfyld, third son of John Bamfyld of Poltimore in Devon, Esq. was admitted at Wadham College 1631, mt. 16; M.A. 1638, and took Episcopal orders
1641. He was presented to [Sherbourne?] in Dorset, and collated to a prebend in the church of Exeter. He was then zealous for King Charles, and publicly read the Common Prayer longer than any minister in this county.
After Mr. Baxter brought him over to the Parliament party ; he took the Engagement, and in 1653 succeeded Mr. Lyford here.
In 1662 he was ejected by the Act of Uniformity, and lost his preferments, and afterwards kept a conventicle here and at London, for which he was imprisoned the last 10 years of his life at several times.
In 1683 he was found guilty at the Old Bailey of refusing the Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance, and died that year in Newgate, and was buried at the Anabaptists burial place near Aldergate Street.
Wood says he was very inconstant in his principles, had been a Church-man, Presbyterian, Independent, Anabaptist, and at last a Jew and Enthusiast. His writings were full of the most unintelligible bombast, and in one piece he seems to have anticipated the Hutchinsonian conceit of deriving all sciences and arts from Scripture.
My understanding of
THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE COUNTY OF DORSET:
COMPILED FROM
The beft and moft ancient Historians, Inquisitiones post Mortem,
and other valuable Records and MSS. in the Public Offices, and
Libraries, and in private Hands.
WITH A COPY OF
DOMESDAY BOOK and the INQUISITIO GHELDI for the County:
INTERSPERSED WITH
Some remarkable Particulars of NATURAL HISTORY; ...
By JOHN HUTCHINS, M. A.
Reftor of the Holy Trinity in Wareham, and of Swyre, in the County of Dorset
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
Printed by W. BOWYER and J. NICHOLS.
MDCCLXXIV. (I think that's 1774)
https://ia600706.us.archive.org/1…
Some ejected ministers had principles -- like Richard Baxter.
This site has biographies of the leading Puritan/Presbyterian leaders and what happened to them, when known. Some just disappeared from the annals:
https://www.apuritansmind.com/pur…
And some, like the Rev. Ralph, reluctantly put on his surplus and picked up his Book of Common Prayer, and made the cut.